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Washington, D.C. -- Election reform advocates from across the country today concluded a two-day blitz on Capitol Hill in support of Rep. Rush Holt’s Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550), a bill designed to restore confidence in the outcomes of elections and in our electoral process generally by requiring a voter-verified paper audit trail for each vote.
“The mid-term elections are just over seven months away, and the question remains: if you cast your vote on an electronic voting machine, will your vote be counted as you intended? Will it be counted at all?” said Holt. “The answer is nobody knows for certain—and that’s precisely why these machines must have independent paper audit records.”
Joining Holt at the event were Representatives Frank Wolf (R-VA), Tom Petri (R-WI), and Greg Walden (R-OR), as well as voting reform activists from across the country.
Working under the umbrella name of the “I Count Coalition,” organizations involved in the two-day lobbying and outreach activities included Common Cause, VerifiedVoting.org, VoteTrustUSA, VotersUnite.org, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Working Assets, and TrueMajority. More than 200 citizens held more than 100 individual meetings with members of Congress or their staffs to urge passage of H.R. 550, which would require that all voting systems used in federal elections generate a voter-verified paper record that could be inspected by voters prior to their final votes being cast and tallied. The activists delivered to the House Administration Committee a petition with more than 50,000 signatures calling upon the committee to pass HR 550 as written as soon as possible, and also conducted media interviews and blogging, with posts on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s website ( www.eff.org).
Passing HR 550 would ensure that in close elections where electronic voting machines malfunction, paper audit trails would be available to ensure a legal and verifiable recount of the votes. The bill would also require that a secure, accessible voter-verification mechanism be provided for use by voters with disabilities.
Holt noted that the movement for verifiable elections has grown dramatically over the past several years.
“As of today, 26 states have some type of paper ballot or paper trail requirement on the books as either state law or election regulation, and 13 others are considering such legislation. The message is clear: this is a bipartisan issue no matter where you live or how you vote. Congress should act to ensure that we have a national independent paper audit record standard for electronic voting machines, because it is the very integrity of our electoral process that is at stake.”
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